Happy Birthday to Me

I could not have asked for a better place to spend my birthday.
Ossabaw is amazingly beautiful, it truly is "peace preserved".


I might have taken the day off for my birthday, relaxing alone at home and making Kate do all the work.  We could have worked the beaches together, taking all day but enjoying each other's company.  Or the third option, which we chose, was to split up and get things done quickly, so we could play together in the afternoon.  And so, Kate took the truck to the south end, and I went north in the Mule.

It turned out to be a very easy day.  I hit the beach at just the right time in the tide cycle to drive North Middle, saving me some time and effort.  The tides are in a down cycle, making spotting crawls today rather easy.  There was about a five foot difference between yesterday's high tide line, and this mornings.  If a turtle were to come up, it's track would be preserved within that area.  The past week, as the tide was increasing and many crawls were mostly erased, making them much more difficult to spot.  I'm glad to be back in the down cycle, but it won't last long, as the full moon approaches.  To top things off, there was a nice breeze, and some cloud cover - finally a break from the heat that had been wiping us these past few days.

I checked the raccoon traps on North Middle, but didn't have any, nor did I have any crawls.  Turning around, I was back on Bradley (North) in no time and began my patrol.  The first thing I came upon on Bradley was a big dead hog in the sand.  I had seen it yesterday too with Adam.  This is a good thing - it means Eric is out there hunting.  By now there were vultures all over it.  Hopefully it won't stay there too long, since it really stinks.  But, now that the tides are cycling down, being lower each day than the one previous, the hog wont get washed away for some time.  Maybe the buzzards can eat it up quickly.

When I came to my first crawl, my heart sank a little.  As soon as I saw the turtles track I noticed there were other tracks within her track, and going in the same direction - they were raccoon tracks.  I walked up the crawl, looked over the wrack and grass she had crawled through, and was not surprised to see egg shells scattered about.  This raccoon knew what it was doing.  It had either seen the turtle and followed it, or knew how to identify a turtle crawl and used it to locate the nest.  It had eaten 19 eggs.  After counting the broken eggs, I covered the nest back up and screened it off.  I had taken one of the traps from North Middle to fix back at home, but now I needed it, so I broke out the toolbox and got it working on the beach.  I set the trap right in the raccoon's path back into the woods, and hopefully, he'll be in there in the morning.  This one is just too smart to allow near our nests.  And while at first I felt bad about lethally removing the first two raccoons, I'm pretty comfortable with it now that they've gotten at two more of my nests, and taken the three little plover eggs we were so excited about.

I packed everything back up and drove north, stopping on the way to flip a bunch of horseshoe crabs.  Kate called me and gave me her report.  I told her I was almost done, not expecting any more nests as we haven't had any further north than where I was since NB1 (our very first nest).  But, after I hung up with Kate, and drove a few hundred feet north, I found another crawl.  I found the eggs easily, did the work and drove on.  To my surprise, and Kate's delight, I found yet one more nest, which put our total at 90 nests, a mark Kate was excited to hit.  I finished up my patrol and was off the beach by 8:30, leaving plenty of time left in the day to play.

At home I took a nap while Kate prepared for my birthday adventure.  When I woke, we grabbed the cooler she packed and my camera and jumped in the truck.  She was taking me somewhere I hadn't been, and that she discovered a few days ago.  We drove down the main road, Kate looking for the right place to turn.  When she found the little used route, she made a left and drove into into the forest, navigating around stumps and logs.  We came to a large fresh-water pond and she stopped the truck, informing me this was the first stop.  We enjoyed the sights and sounds there for a little while, watching the dragonflies, birds and frogs and taking pictures.

Then it was time to go to our second stop, a very small fresh-water pond that looked like it may have been made by someone digging up the dirt there to fix a road.  When we approached the pond, more frogs that I had ever seen began jumping all around.  They finally settled down when we did.  As we stood there and looked, we began to see more and more frogs.  When one was spotted, I'd notice another near it, and then another.  We took a few pictures of them, and of the ripples made on the surface by the water bugs dancing around.  When I was done with the camera, I made Kate hold it so I could catch a frog.  They're pretty fast for such little things, and boy can they jump.  I finally did catch one, let Kate pet it, and set it free again.

Our next stop was what Kate had been planning.  She had discovered a beautiful little vista, overlooking one of the creeks that run into the marsh.  She brought us here at high tide, the water coming up to an earthen ledge on which she had setup a blanket and all my fishing gear.  In the cooler she had packed some yummy food and a couple of beers.  She had also brought frozen shrimp, which she found at the other house while doing laundry, for bait.  We stayed there for a couple hours, enjoying the tranquility of the island. We didn't catch any fish there though, didn't even get a bite.

We decided to pack it up when the tide shifted.  On the way home we stopped at the causeway to check our crab trap and try casting the rod a few more times.  There was only one crab in the trap.  I baited the rod with some shrimp and cast it out.  Right away Kate could see a crab going after my bait.  She quickly realized she could see lots of crabs, so she got out the little hand crab trap (a small net like thing with a weight and a clip for bait).  We put some shrimp on it, and she tossed it in.  In just a minute or two, she had a crab on the net, and pulled it in.  "It's so easy", she said, "I don't know why we never tried this before."  I continued trying to fish while she kept pulling in crabs.  In the end, she kept 6 big ones, threw back a few small ones, and I caught 4 small croaker to re-bait the larger trap.

Back at the house, we prepared our crab boil, and I fired up the grill and put on one of the rack of ribs I had taken off the hog a few days ago.  While the ribs cooked for an hour or two, I took phone calls from family wishing me happy birthday, and then we enjoyed the crabs with some TV on the couch.  The crabs were excellent - the girls are a little sweeter than the boys.  After we cleaned up the crabs, we brought in the ribs, along with a baked potato.  The ribs were pretty lean, as the hogs don't have any nuts to get fat on in the summer, but they were still very good, and a real treat for me.  Completely stuffed now, we cleaned up the ribs, and Kate brought out some lemon bars she had made in lieu of a cake.  Full in body, mind and soul, I jumped in bed.  The island, and Kate, had treated me with an easy work day, spectacular weather, natural beauty, and a contented spirit.  It was indeed a very happy birthday, and one final gift to boot, I get a day off tomorrow!